


Harmonies.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: First Kiss, Force Visions, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Multiple Universes, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27017968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: He collapses once he reaches the landing bay, the wide blue skies of Tatooine vanishing as the entry ramp closes at his feet.  The power core reverberates underneath him as the Queen’s chromium ship passes into hyperspace, and he’s hearing that sound again, the lonely harmonies of the passing stars, faint and diminished to his ear.Both his head and heart are spinning in time with the universe.  Qui-Gon lies on his back, floating above it all.Written for the Jinnobi Challenge 2020.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 20
Kudos: 59





	Harmonies.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Jinnobi Challenge 2020.

He had first stepped foot on a starship as an initiate, on his way to Ilum. Deep in the heart of hyperspace, Qui-Gon Jinn had sworn he could hear the song of the stars, their cosmic orbit ringing in his head as a cascade of overlapping harmonies. Travel beyond the speed of light amplifies the living Force, or so he had been told; certainly he never feels so close to the center of the Force as he does in the grip of hyperspace. 

Now, the power core reverberates underneath him as the Queen’s chromium ship passes into hyperspace, and Qui-Gon is hearing that sound again, the lonely harmonies of the passing stars, faint and diminished to his ear. 

He collapses once he reaches the landing bay, the wide blue skies of Tatooine vanishing as the entry ramp closes at his feet. Sweat is cooling on the back of his neck, and his head is both clouded and as sharply focused as the facets of a kyber; he had relied heavily on his senses to revive him during his encounter with the dark warrior, and he has not quite fallen out of the Force yet. 

Both his head and heart are spinning in time with the universe. Qui-Gon lies on his back, floating above it all. 

Caught in the currents of the living Force, visions wash through him: Strange stone faces peering out from vines and brackish water, tall pillars of crackling violet light, a mirrored stretch of glowing red doors, the scent of death that drifted from such a place, he is lost in a spiral of possibilities, a thousandfold futures stretching out before his senses like notes of an endless scale.

Qui-Gon stares at the silvered ceiling of the starship and listens to the sound of the heavens, gas giants and white dwarfs, the ephemeral drift of novas and nebulae, the shrill notes of Tatooine fading to a desolate echo behind them. 

He is both here and far beyond his surroundings. 

And then there a voice, one perhaps less melodious than the notes of the heavens, but far more dear. 

“Master.” 

Now there is only the quiet thrum of the engine thrusters, and Obi-Wan’s face bending over him, the corners of his eyes pinched in concern, and his apprentice is so filled with light that for a moment Qui-Gon cannot see anything over the shine of him, so bright contrasted to the darkness that had surrounded the Sith. 

He blinks, and the brilliance fades. 

Qui-Gon forcibly wrenches himself out of his drifting trance, pushes himself up on his elbows. There is much to be done, and so little time. He must consider the dark warrior, he must contact the Council, the Chancellor; he is required in the throne room to report to the Queen, in the cockpit to speak to the pilot and navigator. 

He shrouds himself in the present. 

“It’s nothing,” he assures Obi-Wan, who gives him a look that suggests he is unconvinced of the validity of his master’s claims. Anakin had hovered over him only briefly. The boy acquiesced easily when Qui-Gon sent him off to join the handmaidens, where he would be fed and taken care of; he had extracted that reluctant promise from Padme, before their return to the royal starship. 

There is much to attend to. And yet he finds himself wishing for a quiet place to compose himself. The Queen’s starship is not meant to hold so many; they have been hard-pressed to find room for all the evacuees from Naboo. Then he thinks of a place. 

“You repaired the hyperdrive?” he asks Obi-Wan.

“Obviously, master, or we would still be suffering on Tatooine right now,” his student returns drily.

Qui-Gon staggers up to his feet. “Let’s see about those repairs, then.”

“Yes, master.”

Obi-Wan is skilled in the art of diplomacy; he does not take Qui-Gon’s elbow or comment on his obvious exhaustion or suggest that Qui-Gon rest in their shared cabin in the crew’s quarters until he has recovered. He only raises a single eyebrow as Qui-Gon leans against the bulkheads after several paces, still unable to catch his breath.

Under the main hold is the hyperdrive bay. He follows Obi-Wan down the access hatch and into the heart of the Queen’s starship. The hyperdrive lights blink rapidly, flashing from blue to silver. Obi-Wan helps him wrestle out of the poncho, which he tosses to the side of the bay with his nose wrinkled. 

“Here, master. I installed the parts you, er, acquired under the thermal compressor.”

Obi-Wan drops down to his knee and pulls back the grate on the hyperdrive, revealing the innermost components and the maintenance crawlspace underneath. He slides underneath the hyperdrive and Qui-Gon does the same.

Qui-Gon lies on his back and feels the ship moving beneath him, Obi-Wan a comfortable warmth beside him. He listens to Obi-Wan’s precise voice explaining exactly how he installed the T-14, letting the subtle glow of the lights wash over him. 

The star-map rooms of the Temple have always been his secret hiding place, where he can reach out and twist his fingers through handfuls of stars and planets and send them spinning into infinity. Qui-Gon likes to set the star-charts in motion, to see the slow shift of the galaxy and watch the planets move in their orbits. 

This reminds him of that feeling. This is the universe, right now, the Force surrounding him and Obi-Wan pressed next to him, the irregular pattern of pale lights shining overhead. He thinks briefly of the purrgil, a spacer’s myth, how the deep-space creatures float from star to star, calling out their lonesome songs on their way to a destination they will never reach.

“Fine work, padawan,” he says in response to Obi-Wan’s sudden silence. “I shall have to knight you soon, if you insist on being so terribly efficient.” It’s an old joke between them, but he does mean it, now more than ever. 

Obi-Wan makes a vague sound of disbelief. “The creature you encountered,” he says. “Do you believe it was after the Queen?”

Qui-Gon glances at him, startled. His padawan tilts his head back, frowning at the hyperdrive components above. “You sound as though you doubt that assumption.”

“I suspect the warrior was here for another purpose. Related to the Queen and the Naboo invasion, perhaps—but not the sole reason.” Obi-Wan hesitates. “The boy, Anakin. What are your plans for him?”

“I have no plans, padawan. I cannot speak on the behalf of the Force - but I feel certain that we _were_ meant to find him. There is no chaos, there is harmony,” Qui-Gon tells him, and a familiar frown instantly appears on Obi-Wan’s brow. His padawan has often liked to tease him that he is an aberration as a Jedi master, for he brings chaos wherever he goes.

_Ah, but those words are only meant to describe the multitude of contradictions that our Force embodies. And though I am of the Force, I am not the thing itself,_ he has often said in return. 

“I had not read about any detours for acquiring local youths in the mission mandate, that’s all.”

Qui-Gon is still hanging in the Force, and he has never felt more connected, more alive, more focused than he does at this very moment, every cell in his body aligned with the Force and adhering to its will. Everything suddenly seems very clear to him. There will be balance, there will be beginnings and endings of cosmic importance, and yet in this moment, nothing matters quite so much as the frown on his padawan’s face. 

Qui-Gon reaches out and touches Obi-Wan’s brow, smoothing out the frown with his thumb. With his own eyes, he sees Obi-Wan as he is, the diligent and always faintly exasperated student, and in the Force, he sees all the people that Obi-Wan might yet become—a knight shining with justice, a patient teacher with a quirked smile and raised eyebrow, the formidable leader, the solitary man; all the possibilities that might come to pass for them both. Death might lie in wait for one or both of them, and he remembers his visions, the heat of plasma bleeding through the soles of his boots and the infinite mirror of red doors.

But death is only one possibility, he reminds himself. There are other futures, other outcomes. Anything is possible in the Force. Perhaps in one of these multitudes of universes, there is one where we end up together.

He might have caught a glimpse of one of those futures; perhaps that is the only reason he does what he does next. 

When he kisses Obi-Wan, he is kissing who he is in this moment, and who he has always been and every iteration of who he might be.

The Force rings out between them, a note played by one, bringing out answering chords in the other. He can sense Obi-Wan’s sudden joy like an arpeggio rippling through the Force, and his own delight and wonder echoing in return.

When they break apart, Obi-Wan’s eyes are very clear, and quite serious as he trails his fingers lightly across Qui-Gon’s cheek. Then very slowly he touches the ends of Qui-Gon’s hair, still damp with sweat and curling slightly. 

Qui-Gon captures the hand. He inspects Obi-Wan’s slim fingers, the neatly-trimmed nails. Hands which can be relied upon to repair a hyperdrive, to protect a Queen, to navigate through uncertain waters. And, now, to steady him, tether him to the here and now like a line thrown to a drowning man. 

Capable hands, he thinks. Able to do so much more than his master ever has managed. Strange how he has come to rely so on these hands. He could no more do without Obi-Wan than he could manage without the ability to feel the Force; they are tied up together inside Qui-Gon, the Force and his student and the connection that allows him to experience Obi-Wan’s joy as though it is his own. 

I truly will have to knight him, Qui-Gon realizes suddenly, I should have done so years ago. Only I kept thinking he might need me. But it’s been the other way around for quite a while.

“We must report to the Queen,” Obi-Wan reminds him. 

“Yes,” he replies. Here and now, as he is always reminding Obi-Wan; in this moment they are together, and all the infinities of possibilities he has seen in the Force are all futures that could still happen. There are a thousand potentialities for the next five minutes alone. So he tightens his grip on his padawan’s hand. “In a moment.” 

There is a future, he is certain, where this is the only kiss they will ever have a chance to share. 

He chooses to believe that it will not be this one. 


End file.
